Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Barbarism and Civilization in the Letters of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft: A Summary with Commentary (Part 2), by David Piske

Following on part one, this is a
continuing project to assess the details, letter-by-letter of the debate
between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft on barbarism and civilization. When
leaving off last time, after the fourth letter in the conversation, Lovecraft
(HPL) appeared willing to close that line of discussion, but he was going to
make sure to have the last word. As we open here, with the fifth letter of the
debate (but seventieth item of their overall correspondence), Howard (REH)
seems like he might be willing to let it go, as well, but not without
reaffirming his initial point.

Letter 70: REH to HPL (received November 2, 1932)

Whereas HPL had framed the topic as "the relative
merits of barbarous and civilised life," when REH returns to the topic, he
introduces it as "my preference for a theoretical former existence"
(439). He also reminds HPL that he never claimed barbarism is superior to
civilization. But this belies the impression we get from portions of the
correspondence that do not explicitly belong to the barbarism/civilization
discussion. For REH, barbarism is more than mere preference. Over time, the
image of the barbarian comes to encapsulate his values, dispositions, and
criticisms of society. The framing of his remarks as mere preference seems more
like an attempt to avoid debate, which he likely sees as pointless anyway. In
any case, REH concedes to HPL’s broadest point: "civilization even in
decaying form, is undoubtedly better for people as a whole" (439).

Perhaps taking HPL's line about those who hold
an overly flattering view of barbarism as an indirect reference to himself, REH
denies romanticizing primitive life:

"I have no idyllic view of barbarism—as
near as I can learn it's a grim, bloody, ferocious and loveless condition. I
have no patience with the depiction of the barbarian of any race as a stately,
god-like child of Nature, endowed with strange wisdom and speaking in measured
and sonorous phrases. Bah! My conception of a barbarian is very different"
(439).

As he expands on his understanding of barbarism,
it (initially) seems realistic. The barbarian was not merely passionate and
intense, but unstable, undignified; not just amoral, but even plainly immoral
and horrific. Far from the "noble savage" stereotype, barbarians as a
whole lack civilized virtues, even to the point of being retreating,
uncontrolled, and deceptive. And he was virtually imprisoned by the conditions
of his existence and the powers to which he was subject. The barbarian was not
his own: "He had no mental freedom, as civilized man understands it, and
very little personal freedom, being bound to his clan, his tribe, his
chief" (439). He belonged to his people, and ultimately to his chief and
to his gods, both of whom exercised their mortal power over him arbitrarily and
absolutely. At any moment and for the pettiest of reasons he could loose his
life, or be forced to perform abominable acts even against his own offspring.
Unlike the ideal civilized man, the dominant motivation in the barbarian’s life
is unprincipled passion, "whims" – when not the tyrannical passions
of his betters, then his own.

This is hardly an endorsement for REH’s earlier
claim to wish to be reborn to such a life. It is also surprising that this
barbarian is virtually a slave, and ultimately passive, without will, very
unlike the portrait of a willful Conan that will eventually develop in his
stories. So REH's turn here is revealing. Here we see the naked appeal of
barbarism to him, even if it betrays some tint of romanticism after all.

"But he was lithe and strong as a panther, and the full
joy of strenuous physical exertion was his. The day and the night were his
book, wherein he read of all things that run or walk or crawl or fly. Trees and
grass and moss-coverd rocks and birds and beasts and clouds were alive to him,
and pertook of his kinship. The wind blew his hair and he looked with naked
eyes into the sun. Often he starved, but when he feasted, it was with mighty
gusto, and the juices of food and strong drink were stinging wine to his
palate" (439).

His initial description is far from idyllic, but he cannot
help but change his style of expression when he describes what compels him.
Notably, there is the familiar theme of joy in physical exertion. This almost
certainly is related to an earlier section in the same letter where he writes
for more than two pages on his own physicality and preference for athleticism
over mental activity. Similarly, the barbarian, with his animal-like strength
and muscular form, has no need for self-conscious reflection, but is content to
be absorbed in strivings. This barbarian is not quite the "noble
savage" of earlier Romantics, but he remains idealized, even if along
different lines. This barbarian does not speak in "sonorous phrases",
but he lives in a quasi-mystical relationship with nature. He has little
shelter from the punishment of the elements yet from them, and from beasts too,
he gains knowledge. He is sensitive even to the earth and sky, which are his
kin. And the overwhelming austerity of this life gave him special skill in
wresting hedonistic delight from a rare feast. Though more romantic, this
imaginative style is what attracts his readers to his stories; it is no
surprise he perceived the world, even the world of antiquity, with the same
flair.

In what appears to be frustration, REH acknowledges
inability to make his point more clearly. A familiar experience, apparently, as
he is resigned to it: no one has ever understood him on this point before, and
he certainly does not expect anyone to do so. He reiterates the point from his
previous letter that he would not want to adopt such a life, but given the
chance at rebirth, "I'd choose such an existence as I've just sought to
depict" (440). Again, appearing to sidestep ongoing debate, he states that
his comments have nothing to do with "the relative merits of barbarism and
civilization," but is a matter of "personal opinion and choice."
At the end of this section REH seems as willing as HPL to end this particular
discussion.

Letter 73: HPL to REH (November 7, 1932)

HPL calls REH's description of the barbarous life
"magnificently graphic and comprehensive" (477-8). He acknowledges
that REH suffers no illusions about primitive life as did Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. But if REH understands its gruesomeness, why would he still wish to
be born into barbarism? HPL attributes it to "the inexplicable diversity
of human tastes."

HPL then reiterates familiar points – that the disadvantages
of barbarism overshadow the disadvantages, that the barbarian is "blind
and callous" to many aspects of a civilized intellectual and aesthetic
life, that a barbarian gains more than he loses by acquiring civilization, and
that the only ancient society he himself identifies with is the Graeco-Roman.
The only roles in barbaric life he can imagine for himself are that
of "a history-chanting bard or mystery-making shaman," but even
these would be offer a "pallid and unsatisfactory ghost of what a mature
civilisation might give" (478). He concludes similarly as once before:
that he admires many barbarian qualities, but cannot identify with them.

Letter 75: REH to HPL (December 1932)

In this letter, REH’s contribution to the
barbarism/civilization conversation is less revealing than several things he
has to say on other related subjects.

First, REH writes about the importance of physical strength
in a section that fills five pages. Two prominent ideas from this section are:
1) that while the mind is important, it is indivisible from and dependent upon
the physical body; and 2) that it is important that a man feel equal to other
men, and have the ability to fulfill the physical requirements of various
scenarios, including forcibly standing up to other men, if needed (488-493).

Second, in a conversation about politics, REH
demurs to identify with a particular party, but he does identify his supreme
value:

"I have but a single conviction or ideal .
. . : individual liberty. . . . I’d rather be a naked savage, shivering,
starving, freezing, hunted by wild beasts and enemies, but free to go and come
. . . , than [be] the fattest, richest, most bedecked slave in a golden palace
. . ." (501).

He expands on this idea, citing a segment of verse
expressing the lament of a black slave, he becomes nostalgic for the freedom of
the early frontier, finally announcing, "I make no attempt to advocate a
single ideal of personal liberty as the one goal of progress and culture. But
by God, I demand freedom for myself. And if I can’t have it, I’d rather be
dead" (502).

These comments, more than a lot of what is written in the
conversation directly about barbarism and civilization, reveal the sources of
REH’s developing view of and identity with barbarism. He must be free, and
one who would be free must be forceful enough to back up the claim. However, it
should be noted that this conviction about freedom stands in inexplicably stark
contrast to the image of the essential bound and passive barbarian in his
previous letter. These inconsistencies demonstrate a development in REH’s
thought, a development which culminates in the later Conan stories.

When he does turn to the "debate," instead of
directly rebutting HPL’s claims about the advantages of civilization, REH
further develops the basic equivalence he previously proposed (in letter 65). A
civilized man would find barbaric life intolerable, but a person born to
barbarism would feel "no lack of a fullness in life" (507). Then he
illustrates the point. The barbarian feels no lack of civilization, just as the
Indians felt no lack of whiskey, and the Europeans felt no lack of tobacco. As
with whiskey and tobacco, "so are many other of the adjuncts of
civilization. We can not get along without them now; but we would be better off
if we had never discovered or developed them" (507). We might guess from
other sections in the letters about which "adjuncts of civilization"
he has in mind. In any case, it is clear that he counts them just as
"artificial," "unnecessary," and unfortunate as whiskey and
tobacco.

Here we see REH inching into debate mode. He strengthens and
repurposes an earlier argument, not just to defend the integrity of his own
fantasy, but to intellectually defend historical barbarism. It is easy to
imagine that REH is beginning to see this discussion as a recapitulation of the
oft repeated struggle of free barbarians against the tyranny of civilization.

But there is some incongruity between REH’s two lines of
approach. On one hand, the difference between a barbarous and civilized life is
basically one of acclimation to circumstances. On the other hand, under the
conditions described in his last letter, violent, painful struggle would only
yield bare subsistence. While it is not impossible for people in hellish
conditions to find meaning enough to survive, such a task surely goes beyond
mere acclimation, and it could hardly yield a "full life." For now,
at least, REH is attempting to mesh his fantasy of barbarism with a defense of
actual barbarism without facing the reality of its horror.

Next REH responds to HPL's stated preference to be a bard or
shaman: "those are the very last things I should wish to be, were my lot
cast among the uncivilized" (507). The shaman is the closest a
barbarian can come to being civilized, REH claims. For that reason, it is an
in-between existence, "a half world" that is "part savage and
part budding consciousness." The shaman dimly glimpses a higher reality,
and on that account feels a lack of intellectual attainment. Better to be
"a complete barbarian," unbothered by the gloomy shadows that haunt
the seer. A warrior or ordinary tribesman kills, breeds, feasts, and eventually
dies terribly, but in never being troubled by "abstractions," he
lives his life to the fullest, even if it seems shallow to modern men. From an
external point of view, it is difficult to see the equivalence between the
"budding consciousness" of a shaman and the intellect of
"civilized man." Indeed, a philosopher might point out the vast
difference between Reason and superstition. However, ever the individualist,
REH speculatively compares the situations from the vantage point of individual
consciousness: just as a "civilized man" engages his mind more than
his body, so is the shaman more preoccupied with visions and "truths"
than physical exertion.

Finally, driving his point home, REH concludes his remarks
on the topic with another statement of equivalence: "Just as a man, dwelling
in civilization, is happier when most fully civilized, so a barbarian is
happier when fully barbaric" (507).

Letter 77: HPL to REH (January 21, 1933)

HPL sets forth to decimate the equivalence that REH
made between the happiness of the civilized man and the barbarian in their own
settings. He opens, remarking how complex this issue is, and difficult to
judge, but then proceeds to do so with an apparent feeling of certainty.

HPL first counters REH's idea that the barbarian's happiness
is equivalent to the civilized man's; the two states are quantifiably
different. The experience of "underdeveloped forms of life" is
limited to physical and crudely emotional stimulation, which occupies only a
fraction of a fully developed human consciousness. As a result, barbarians are
"really only a quarter or a sixteenth alive" (527).

The basis for his claim is
"energy-conversion" – apparently the biochemical process that
produces pleasure. He concedes to REH’s point that a barbarian could not miss
something he does not know of, but he renders the point irrelevant. The matter
of relative happiness is as simple as whether

"the amount of pleasurable energy-conversion in the
pitifully restricted consciousness of the barbarian can give him as keen a
psychological satisfaction—as measured by any conceivable unit—as the
stupendously vaster amount of pleasurable energy-conversion in the enormously
greater consciousness-area of the civilised man" (527).

For "the thoughtful investigator" is "mindful
that all sensation is really chemical or physical action and therefore
theoretically measurable in energy-units," and larger amounts of sensation
are more poignant than smaller amounts (527).

As example, HPL considers a wooden stick, a starfish, a
dog, a "savage", and a civilized man. In a state of maximum pleasure
allowed by their natures and conditions, each converts vastly different amounts
of energy: 0, 5, 100, 1,000, and 100,000, respectively (in undefined and
theoretical units of happiness?).

H.P. Lovecraft

HPL allows for "metaphysical debate on this
point", but he maintains that greater energy conversion yields greater
pleasure (528). Since each being has a different inherent capacity for energy
conversion (and therefore for pleasure), it is unlikely that the maximum pleasure
for each type equals "identical emotional states."
Thus, "The difference between the content of a barbarian and the
pleasure of a civilsed man is that between numbness and agreeable
sensation—between the taste of an inoffensive and faintly palatable food and
that of a keenly delightful and well-seasoned food" (528).

HPL rounds out his argument by anticipating circumstances
that could mitigate the margin of difference between the barbarian’s and the
civilized man’s degree of pleasure, and then rebutting them. In the process he
categorizes REH (along with Lord Monboddo, a Scottish anthropologist) as a
"lover of barbarism." He then digresses into remarks about how some
inferior races might very well be better suited to barbarism, but how that is
no reason to hold back the superior races (529).

Even aside from his pejorative language about barbarians and
his generally condescending tone toward REH, HPL’s argument contains several
flaws. He might have had a good point about the effects of differing levels of
stimulation on consciousness, however despite attempting to present it as
scientific, it appears to be no more than a series of metaphysical assertions
and assumptions. For example: that the mental stimulation possible in
civilization is more than the intense physical stimulation of the barbarian’s
struggle to survive; that more stimulation equals more pleasure; and that
happiness is a simple matter of sensation or pleasure. Add to this the fact
that his quantification of energy conversion is arbitrary, based merely on his
bias.

Moving on from his main argument, HPL notes an irony in
REH’s position: "[Y]ou undoubtedly belong . . . to the superior type which
would lose most through a relapse of the world into barbarism" (529). It
seems to go without his notice that REH never wished for such. He then attacks
the coherence of REH’s fantasy of rebirth into barbarism. REH desires to be a
barbarian warrior, but he in fact could never be. The flesh-hacking warrior’s
qualities result from his lack of imaginative sensitivity, but REH’s
imagination would never let him be anything other than a minstrel or shaman.
Even exhausting physical exertion would never fully "stifle the restless
questing of a mind as finely organised and alert as [his]" (529).

Suddenly HPL moves on from flattery to argue for the
superiority of civilization with a series of loosely related claims. Most
notably, he argues 1) that barbarism eventually fails because whenever there is
a "lull in the deadly struggle for physical survival," barbarians
cannot help but develop; 2) that "a sensible evolutionary standard"
demonstrates the quantitative and qualitative superiority of civilization; 3)
that every argument for barbarism is based on "fallacious romanticism and
sentimentality" that disregards facts; and 4) that nearly all the defects
of civilization are due to lapses into barbarism ("as a result of the
ascendancy of brutish and greedy primitive minds").

Robert E. Howard posing as a Pirate

What seems ironic is that these last points are
loosely related and do not form a unified argument, yet some of them are
probably the best points HPL has offered so far in the debate. Had he expanded
on them without inflammatory hyperbole and condescension, and avoided
metaphysical speculation, he would have made a stronger case, and avoided
embittering his friend.

HPL concludes his tirade, again announcing his own victory
over an imagined and merely projected opposition, as REH never made any of the
claims that HPL here vanquishes: "Really, it is quite impossible to make
out a soundly convincing case for barbarism. All the facts are against it. . .
. Civilisation is not something to be rejected" (530).

6 comments:

Overall, another excellent installment. I liked the "energy-conversion" quote. I hope there will be further examples of such hand-waving psycho-babble.

As for quibbles, I personally believe the "development which culminates in the later Conan stories" statement could be a bit more precise. It could be read as meaning Howard only began envisioning such a concept at that point, rather than the concept reached full fruition in late tales such as "Red Nails".

Some have argued that this debate (which began after the first few Conan yarns) is what sparked REH's views on the subject. I simply cannot agree with that.

A final quibble is the use of the "joke" photo of REH which, out of context, could be quite unflattering when seen by a newcomer to Howard's work.

"Unknown", the use the REH photo was not intended to be a joke. I placed the photo there because it is actually a newly discovered picture of REH. Howard posed for that picture and probably liked it. It was fairly common for REH to pose for these types of pictures because his imagination was always at play.

I'm not sure what you mean by "such a concept." If you mean barbarism, then it is obvious that it did not begin at "this point;" as I pointed out, these are the 70th and 75th pieces of the REH/HPL correspondence, and the 5th and 7th letters in the debate on this subject. If you mean something else, please clarify.

You are correct that this debate did not initiate REH's thinking about barbarism. Clearly his interest goes back further; REH and HPL discussed related topics early on in their correspondence. And to clarify: while REH had already written several Conan stories by the start of the "debate" in August 1932, the first, The Phoenix on the Sword, was published later, in December of the same year.

I've been REALLY enjoying the articles here, Professor Vick, and these two by visiting Professor Piske (who is kind enough to join us here at the Underwood College of Howardian Knowledge) on The Great Debate in particular.

However, I have to agree with Unknown.

While the Howard pic is indeed a newly discovered one, it looks out of place considering the serious tone of the piece and the intellectual debate between these two GIANTS. The HPL one is just fine, with Grandpa Theobald looking all intellectual and scholarly in the library, but the one of teenage Howard playing at pirates and scowling at the camera is a visual speedbump. This one...

...suits the serious tone better. After all, this isn't just for Howard fans, but for Lovecraft fans as well. And if they're getting their first exposure to Howard the man, that pirate pic's probably gonna make them look cross-eyed at ole Two-Gun.

Piffley grumbles aside, the site as a whole is GREATNESS, and bookmarked at the top of my ever-growing REH folder, right there with the Forum.

Keep it up, fellers!

Charles "Tex" Albritton III

(it would be REALLY COOL if the articles here were eventually published in book form, hint-hint)

Hey Tex, thanks for the kind remarks and I'm very glad to hear you are enjoying David's series. I have a whole host of upcoming articles/posts from a wide variety of REH fans/scholars so please stay tuned! Cheers!